


20 Random Facts about Matt and Mohinder

by Mireille



Category: Heroes (TV)
Genre: 20 Random Facts, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-11-19
Updated: 2007-11-19
Packaged: 2019-03-19 04:25:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13696812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mireille/pseuds/Mireille
Summary: It does what it says on the tin.  Goes through 2x01.





	20 Random Facts about Matt and Mohinder

1\. The first time Matt wakes up in the hospital--really wakes up, not just drifts out of a drug and pain-induced fog for a minute--Janice is there, tearfully confessing to what he's already known but wasn't letting himself believe. Thoughts don't lie like words can, but it's still not until he hears the words from her mouth that he believes her. By the time he falls asleep again, he's already decided what he has to do.  
  
The second time he wakes up, Mohinder Suresh is asleep in the chair in the corner of the room.  
  
  
2\. Matt only went home with Mohinder so they'd discharge him from the hospital; he was going to find a studio for himself and work out some kind of joint-custody deal so he could keep Molly with him part of the time. More than three months later, he realizes he never even thought about moving out, once he was there.  
  
  
3\. They're in the grocery store one morning shortly after Matt's up and around again, when a kid comes up to Molly and starts chattering to her. Matt's preoccupied picking out breakfast cereal, and Mohinder's looking over his shoulder to make sure he doesn't get Molly Triple-Frosted Sugar Coma Crunchies (Matt's own breakfast choices are Mohinder's despair, but not his responsibility), so they don't hear the conversation.  
  
"So what did that kid want?" Matt asks when they've moved on to the dairy case.  
  
Molly shrugs and says, "He wanted to tell me that he has two dads, too. He was just a baby--" Mohinder chuckles, because the boy was at least seven or eight-- "so I didn't tell him you're not--"  
  
"Gay?" Matt blurts out.  
  
Molly gives him a withering look for interrupting. "My real dads," she says. "Can we get yogurt?"  
  
Mohinder looks over at Matt and he's sure Matt's kicked-puppy expression matches his own.  
  
  
4\. Matt never learned to love books; reading was always a battle, a struggle with the words until they either surrendered their meaning or Matt admitted defeat. But Mohinder reads to Molly at night--fairy tales and Nancy Drew and  _Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing_  and  _Beezus and Ramona_ \--and Matt sits out at the table, supposedly studying for the detective exam, but mainly listening to the soft cadence of Mohinder's voice as he describes the latest disaster Fudge has wreaked on his brother's life. Sometimes, once Molly is asleep and Mohinder is reading his own book, Matt can hear the words inside Mohinder's head, and wishes he could ask Mohinder to read it out loud.  
  
  
5\. Mohinder cooks; Matt decides that means he should help Molly with her homework. It's mostly doable, because fourth grade is still the "big print and not too many words" stage of textbooks, but sometimes he falters, the words jumbling before his eyes. He closes his eyes, heat prickling the lids, feeling small and ashamed and no wonder Janice cheated on you, Parkman, you can't even fucking  _read_.  
  
He doesn't hear Mohinder come up behind him, but for once his "gift" is really worth the name, because suddenly he hears Mohinder's thoughts, clear and focused, telling him what the words on the page say. Homework done, Molly hugs Matt and tells him he's awesome, and Matt looks over at Mohinder. Just for a second, Matt thinks he's not the only mind-reader in the house.  
  
  
6\. Mohinder watches Matt with Molly sometimes; his throat gets tight and he thinks,  _This. This is what a father should be._  
  
  
7\. It's usually Matt's job to deal with Molly's nightmares, but Matt overdid it today and he took both a painkiller and a sleeping pill. When Molly cries out, Mohinder goes to her, letting Matt sleep.  
  
Tonight, she clings to Mohinder's shirt, whimpering that she can't  _find_  them, why can't she find them? Mohinder strokes her hair, murmuring the same things to her that his mother used to say to him when he was small and frightened, long ago and far away.  
  
Molly responds to the tone even if she doesn't understand the words, and finally calms down enough to sob into his chest that she didn't think about her parents at all today, and they're going to think she forgot them.  
  
Mohinder decides now isn't the time for a lecture on metaphysics or comparative theology, so he tells her that her parents love her, and know she'll always love them, and they want her to have a happy life.  
  
When she falls asleep, Mohinder gets up to see Matt standing in the doorway, groggy and rumpled-looking. "I don't know," Matt says, with the sheepish smile he gets when he knows he's read someone's mind without permission, "you're not so bad at this dad thing, yourself."  
  
  
8\. Mohinder's fluent enough that he thinks in English when he's talking to English speakers, but lately, he realizes, he's even doing it when he's thinking to himself as he chops vegetables and washes plates and checks over Molly's spelling assignment. Matt tries not to read his thoughts, he knows, but it feels... right, somehow to make certain Matt will understand the words if he does overhear by accident. The thought has occurred to him that now, if he switches to Tamil, Matt will know he has something to hide, but Mohinder has decided that he wants no secrets here, in their home, the one place they can all be safe.  
  
  
9\. Matt is sure that no matter what she said, the real reason Janice told him about the baby, knowing that hearing the words from her would end their marriage, is the mind-reading. He realizes one day that he's being extra-careful around Mohinder, trying to be as certain as he can be that he only hears the thoughts Mohinder wants to share. Matt has to laugh at himself, because he's working harder at a relationship with someone he's never even kissed than he did at his marriage.  
  
  
10\. Matt's only been out of the hospital for a little while, but he insists on taking Molly Christmas shopping anyway; he says she needs to feel like her life is going on even without her parents. Mohinder agrees, but only after secretly bribing Molly with her choice of any overpriced tacky Barbie Dream Whatever she wants if she'll promise to whine regularly about being tired so that Matt has an excuse to sit down.  
  
  
11\. Everything about Mohinder says "calm" to Matt--the rhythm of his voice, the quiet grace of his movements--but when, on that same shopping trip, Molly gets separated from them in the crowd, it's Matt who points out that if they just stand still, as soon as Molly realizes she can't see them, she'll make her way back to them; they have the only kid ever who  _can't_  get lost. (He doesn't let himself think that someone's taken her; that Molly could survive so much and be snatched by some random scumbag is unthinkable.) And it's Mohinder who asks every passerby if they've seen a little girl, until--two minutes and two millennia after they discover she's gone--Molly reappears. And it's Mohinder who scoops her up in his arms and hugs her like she's been gone two years, but Matt hugs them both, too grateful and relieved to care what anyone might think.  
  
  
12\. The first time they sleep in the same bed is after one of Molly's nightmares. She wants them close; Matt pulls her to him, keeping her safe in the shelter of his arms, while Mohinder curls around her. "Like a cat protecting her kitten," Matt says, the words out before he's aware he's speaking out loud, and even if that's a little embarrassing, the way Molly giggles and meows makes it worthwhile.  
  
When Mohinder wakes up, Matt has twisted in his sleep, and his arm is flung over Molly and Mohinder both. It's warm and heavy and above all,  _safe_ , and so Mohinder closes his eyes and goes back to sleep.  
  
  
13\. Molly's teacher asks for a conference to talk about how Molly's settling in at her new school. Mohinder gets there first, and when Matt arrives, he watches from the doorway for a few seconds, noticing that she's definitely flirting with Mohinder, whether she knows it or not. It's pretty obvious that  _Mohinder_  doesn't know it.  
  
Then Matt walks in, pulls an undersized chair up close to Mohinder--too close, insanely close, even if they live in a tiny apartment and they've been closer than this a million times--and says, "Hi. I'm Molly's other Dad." The flirting stops, and Matt realizes he feels kind of smug about that.  
  
  
14\. One morning, Molly wakes them both up at two a.m. complaining that she doesn't feel well. She's running a fever, and Matt and Mohinder exchange frightened glances over Molly's head. She rolls her eyes at Matt when he asks her--after Mohinder goes out for OJ and Children's Tylenol and canned chicken soup--to show him on the map where Mohinder is. But she finds him without hesitation, and Matt breathes again.  
  
The next month, when she brings home another case of the sniffles, they'll do it all over again.  
  
  
15\. About a week after Molly's first winter cold, Matt starts feeling feverish, his throat scratchy. He doesn't think it's a big deal; he should have expected that, in his condition, he's going to be susceptible to any bug he comes across, and with a ten-year-old in the house, it's not like he can avoid cold germs until he's physically a hundred percent again.  
  
Mohinder, on the other hand, is just as distressed by Matt's illness as he was by Molly's, and even when Matt proves he can still read Mohinder's thoughts--by reading them accidentally and answering a question Mohinder hadn't asked yet--he's still aware of Mohinder hovering near him, silent and worried.  
  
  
16\. They're at a Chinese restaurant when Molly tugs at Matt's sleeve. The little girl across the room is apparently Molly's bestest of best friends ever, at least for this week--Matt can't keep up with the endlessly-shifting allegiances of fourth-grade girls--and Molly's got both of them up and on their way to the table before they realize what she's doing.  
  
Any embarrassment Matt feels at being forced to meet someone named Brittanie (and her mom, and her dad, who's looking at them with a knowing, and disapproving, look) is totally wiped out by the fact that Molly squeezes their hands and says, "These are my dads."  
  
  
17\. Mohinder argues, again and again, that he's teaming up with Bennet to bring down the Company because he needs to protect Molly. It's what he tells Bennet, because it's what Bennet can understand; Mohinder thinks Bennet would take down the world if it would protect Claire.  
  
It's what he tells Matt, too, because it's halfway true, and because saying that he wants to keep Matt safe, too, is more frightening than a mushroom cloud over Manhattan.  
  
  
18\. When Mohinder's away giving a lecture, Matt worries, because he still isn't crazy about this whole plan. He'd rather just lie low for a while. Maybe even move out of New York, one of these days, to somewhere smaller and greener and less obvious than Dr. Suresh's old apartment.  
  
And Matt calls for pizza, or buys subs, or brings home Chinese, and says he's thrilled to be eating real food again, but the truth is, he misses the vegetables and the food he can't pronounce. He misses NPR on the clock-radio and being nagged to take the garbage out and being asked how he's doing with studying for the detective exam.  
  
Mostly, though, he misses Mohinder.  
  
  
19\. In a hotel room thousands of miles away, Mohinder orders pizza--vegetarian, but still pizza--and tells himself it's because there are no decent restaurants within walking distance.  
  
Mostly, though, he misses Matt.  
  
  
20\. Mohinder only has a few minutes to stop off at home before he leaves for Cairo; he repacks his suitcase, makes a pile of dry-cleaning, and gives Molly a big hug and a kiss on the forehead. Then he sees Matt, silent and tense and worried, and something makes Mohinder walk over and kiss him.  
  
"For luck," Mohinder whispers, the kiss only a brush of his lips against Matt's.  
  
"Have," Matt begins, and then pauses, collecting his thoughts. "Have a safe trip." Mohinder doesn't need to read minds to know they're due for a long talk when he gets home.  
  
He's looking forward to it.

**Author's Note:**

> [me on tumblr](https://mireille719.tumblr.com)


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